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Bilingualism on Stage: Translating Francophone Drama Repertoires

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Este artículo examina la traducción de obras de teatro en diferentes TRANS · núm. 13 · 2009 DOSSIER · 129-136 momentos de la historia del teatro francófono en Canadá. Las traducciones inglesas de las obras dramáticas en lengua francesa, que se realizaron en Québec al principio de la década de los años setenta, muestran un bilingüismo artificial que sirve para promover la cohabitación lingüística y contribuye a la especificidad de un repertorio dramático anglófono emergente en Canadá. En el Canadá occidental, un tipo de teatro reciente, francófono y bilingüe, representativo del bilingüismo real que se da en las comunidades francófonas minoritarias, pone en cuestión la traducibilidad según los modelos tradicionales. Los mecanismos de traducción basados en la puesta en escena diseñados para públicos específicos, como es el caso de los sobretítulos, permiten que la producción original mantenga su dualidad lingüística a la vez que se hace accesible para grupos más amplios y diversos, y se incrementa su visibilidad tanto en el ámbito nacional como internacional. Palabras clavE: Teatro canadiense, teatro francófono, bilingüismo, traducción para la puesta en escena, sobretitulación. Bilingualism on Stage: Translating Francophone Drama Repertoires This article examines the translation of plays at different moments in Canada in the history of French-language theatre in Canada. The English translations of French-language drama originating in Quebec at the beginning of the 1970s depict an artificial bilingualism that serves to promote linguistic cohabitation and contributes to the specificity of an emerging English-Canadian drama repertoire. In Western Canada, a recent, bilingual francophone drama, representative of the real bilingualism of French-speaking communities in a minority context, raises questions of translatability within traditional models. Performance-based translation devices designed for specific audiences, such as surtitles, allow the original production to maintain its linguistic duality while rendering it accessible to larger audiences, thus increasing its visibility both nationally and internationally. Keywords: Canadian drama, French-language drama, bilingualism, performance-based translation, surtitling. louisE ladoucEur University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canadá LOUISE LADOUCEUR TRANS. REVISTA DE TRADUCTOLOGÍA 13, 2009 This article examines the translation of plays lar of Quebec’s urban working class, a sociolect at different moments in the history of French- referred to as joual, became the language of 130 language theatre in Canada. Instrumental in choice for a nascent Quebec literary institution defining a practice and a critical discourse on eager to affirm a specific Québécois identity. theatre translation specific to the Canadian Michel Tremblay’s plays written in joual would context, the first instance to be observed go on to become a model for numerous play- concerns the English translations of French- wrights no longer required to write in standard language drama originating in Quebec at the French with which they were uncomfortable. beginning of the 1970s, a time devoted to the It was a time of rapid expansion for Quebec’s creation of national repertoires in both of drama repertoire, with plays not only written but Canada’s official languages. The second one is also translated into joual, as opposed to being centred on the challenge to translation raised by imported in French translations from France. bilingual francophone drama created in West- Most of the translated plays originated in the ern Canada. prestigious American and British repertoires2 A study by Ruth Martin shows that, five as very little attention was paid to an English- years after the creation of the translation Canadian repertoire still in search of itself. program by the Canada Council for the Arts To celebrate the Centennial of the Canadian in 1972, the number of Canadian books trans- Confederation in 1967, many theatres had been lated from one official language to the other built throughout Canada and given financial had almost doubled (1994: 54). Of the first support and institutional status. Canadian art- 62 plays translated with the support of the ists had been encouraged to write plays for the program, there were 60 plays from Quebec occasion and a few were staged during that year. translated into English. This is rather sur- However, once the celebrations were over, the prising given that 67.29% of the Canadian English theatres went back to producing plays population is unilingual Anglophone, while from the American and British repertoires, and 17.43% is bilingual and 13.25% unilingual Canadian plays were no longer seen on Can- Francophone, most of whom reside in Que- adian stages. As a result, an alternative theatre bec1. One would assume there would be more network sprang up on the periphery of the authors and more plays written in English government-funded regional theatres, dedicat- and more translations from English into ing itself to the creation and promotion of an French. This paradoxical asymmetry in the indigenous English-Canadian drama. Transla- number of plays translated in each direction tion offered several advantages to the poor and is a consequence of the specific evolution of sparsely-attended alternative companies, one the French and the English drama repertoires of which was to produce plays that had already in Canada. proven successful. Quebec’s remarkably prolific At the end of the 1960s, the French vernacu- theatrical production of the time, and especially the success of Québécois playwright Michel 1 See Statistics Canada’s charts on the use of offi- Tremblay, had much to offer to the elabora- cial languages in Canada: <http://www40.statcan.ca/ l02/cst01/demo15_f.htm? searchstrdisabled=langues%20 2006&filename=demo15_f.htm&lan=fre> [Consulted: 2 For more details on the translation of American December 2008]. plays in Quebec, see Annie Brisset (1990). TRANS. Revista de Traductología 13, 2009 BILINGUALISM ON STAGe: TRANSLATING FRANCoPHoNE DRAMA RePeRToIReS IN CANAdA tion of a Canadian theatre repertoire. Tremblay germaine — J’comprends rien pantoute pis j’veux would thus become the quintessential Can- rien savoir. Parle-moé pus… Désâmez-vous adian playwright with eleven plays produced in pour élever ça, pis que c’est que ça vous rapporte? Rien! Rien pantoute… J’t’avertis, 131 English translation between 1972 and 1979, and Linda, chus pas une sarvante moé, icitte! fourteen more between 1980 and 2007. J’ai un million de timbres à coller pis chus These English translations eloquently illus- pas pour les coller tu-seule. Après toute, ces trate the incompatibility of the functions given timbres-là y vont servir à tout le monde! to language in the French and English drama (1968: 9) repertoires of Canada. As opposed to joual, germaine — I don’t want to understand. I don’t a language that bears the marks of a distinct even want to hear about it. I kill myself for way of speaking French specific to Quebec, the whole bunch of you and what do I get the English vernaculars spoken in Canada, in return? Nothing! A big fat nothing! You can’t even do me a little favour! I’m warning although they can exhibit regional accents, you, Linda. I’m sick and tired of waiting on fail to distinguish themselves sufficiently from you. You and everyone else. I’m not a slave, their American equivalents to function as an you know. I’ve got a million stamps to paste emblem of a specific English-Canadian iden- and I’m not about to do it myself. And tity. The vernacular spoken in Newfoundland what’s more, those stamps are for the whole could be considered an exception to this, yet family! (1974: 9-10) it could hardly be an option as it would most In the English version of the play, the names likely be incomprehensible throughout the rest and forms of address of the various characters of Canada3. Translating Tremblay’s plays in have been kept in French, as shown in this an accentuated English vernacular would only excerpt: «Here, Mme. [sic] Dubuc. Let me give have succeeded in shocking the audience and you a hand. […] Thanks Mlle. [sic] Verrette. interfering with the plays’ reception at a critical You’re so kind.» (1974: 25). Many Gallicisms, moment, since they were destined to contribute composed of sentences or words that are kept to an emerging English-Canadian repertoire. in French in the English version, can be found It was thus necessary to adopt another strat- throughout Tremblay’s plays, and some were egy in order to highlight the Canadianness of even added in the revised English version of the plays and to validate their translation and Les-Belles Sœurs published in 1992: «So Manon production. starts screaming at the kids, ‘Catch Maman’s As can be seen see in this excerpt from Les little birdies. Maman’s too tired’» (1992: 29); belles-soeurs in the French and English versions, «Raymond started his cours classique» (ib.: 27)4. the substitute given to joual in Tremblay’s first The importance of the Gallicisms in the plays is a kind of «standard […] generic North English versions of Tremblay’s plays cannot American» (Bosley, 1988: 141) that retains a be overemphasized as they have become their certain level of propriety, but doesn’t exhibit trademark, many of them bearing titles such any particularity that could be perceived as a as: Les Belles Sœurs (1974), Bonjour, là, Bonjour distinctive Canadian attribute. (1975), En Pièces Détachées (1975), Surprise! Sur- 3 For a more detailed analysis on the function of the 4 For more details on the use of Gallicisms in the vernaculars in Canadian drama, see Louise Ladouceur English versions of Tremblay’s plays, see Louise Ladouceur (2007). (2002). LOUISE LADOUCEUR TRANS. REVISTA DE TRADUCTOLOGÍA 13, 2009 prise! (1976), La Duchesse de Langeais (1976), serves another function, destined to affirm a Trois Petits Tours (1977), Damnée Manon, Sacrée francophone identity that is distinctly Québé- 132 Sandra (1981), Sainte-Carmen of the Main (1981) cois.
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